Don’t Ignore This! Obesity Harms the "He

Don't Ignore This! Obesity Harms the "Heart" – Here's Proof, and These Hidden Risks You Must Know

 

"Can the body protect the heart on its own?" Many of us may have wondered this, but from a cardiovascular health perspective, obesity has long been identified as an "invisible threat" to the heart. Excess fat, especially visceral fat accumulated around the abdomen, is quietly damaging your blood vessels and heart – and this is far more alarming than we might think.

 

Most people's understanding of obesity is still limited to the surface level of "affecting body shape," while overlooking its deep-seated harm to the cardiovascular system. When weight exceeds the healthy range, the body falls into a series of chain reactions: first, excess adipose tissue continuously releases inflammatory factors, like planting "inflammatory mines" in the body. These factors chronically irritate the blood vessel walls, robbing blood vessels of their natural elasticity; second, fat accumulation compresses blood vessels and increases blood volume, directly raising blood pressure and forcing the heart to work in a "chronic overload" state; more critically, obesity disrupts glucose and lipid metabolism, triggering insulin resistance, which further worsens damage to the vascular endothelium – laying hidden risks for cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease.

 

Notably, most previous studies on "obesity and cardiovascular disease" focused on people with diabetes. While these studies confirmed that obesity combined with diabetes significantly increases cardiovascular risks, they also left a key question unanswered: For non-diabetic people with general obesity, is obesity itself equally harmful to the heart? It is difficult to clearly distinguish from diabetic research data whether "diabetes harms the heart" or "obesity itself harms the heart." This has led some people with general obesity to mistakenly believe, "As long as I don't have diabetes, being a little fat is okay."

 

However, more and more recent studies are debunking this misconception. Even without diabetes, people with general obesity face significantly higher cardiovascular risks than those with a healthy weight – for every 1 centimeter increase in abdominal fat, the probability of abnormal blood pressure and blood lipids rises accordingly, and the risk of early vascular lesions also increases. This means that regardless of whether one has diabetes, obesity itself is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. The body will not automatically activate a "heart protection mode" just because "there are no other underlying diseases."

 

What's more alarming is that the harm of visceral fat is "hidden." Some people do not look particularly overweight, but have a protruding abdomen and excessive visceral fat. The cardiovascular risk for such "hidden obesity" groups may even be higher than that for people with overall uniform obesity. Because visceral fat is adjacent to vital organs like the heart and liver, the harmful substances it releases act directly on the cardiovascular system, causing more direct and severe damage.

 

Now that obesity's harm to the "heart" is so clear, how should we respond? In fact, there's no need to pursue "rapid weight loss" – what matters more is building long-term healthy lifestyle habits: for example, maintaining 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week, prioritizing activities like brisk walking and swimming that burn visceral fat; reducing high-sugar, high-oil, and high-salt foods in the diet while increasing dietary fiber intake to help regulate metabolism; at the same time, regularly monitoring waist circumference (recommended to be no more than 90 cm for men and 85 cm for women) – this is more effective than just focusing on weight numbers for detecting cardiovascular risks in a timely manner.

 

Stop hoping that the body will "protect the heart on its own." Faced with obesity – an "accelerator" of cardiovascular disease – proactively managing weight and improving lifestyle habits is the most practical way to protect your heart. After all, there's no "turning back" when it comes to cardiovascular health. The earlier you pay attention and take action, the more you can keep your "heart" in a healthy state.